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Originally Posted by AntEater
Sorry, I didnt mean to offend your patriotism.
But to people who are not citizens of the US, the US is definitely just another country.
What is so wrong about being "another country"? Of course for US Citizens, it is not, but for me, and the citizens of other countries, the US is of course the most important country in the world in regard to economic and military power, but not their country.
To you, Germany is just another country as well.
I mean I am not a citizen of the US, so I do not expect the US government to do anything for me. Why should they? Their first responsibility is with US citizens like you are one.
The US government created Marshal Plans and the likes because it was advantageous for their own country in a lot of ways. It was a far sighted decision. Much more far sighted than anything the current US (OR the current german) government is doing right now.
(PS, here it is way past noon and i'm just in the mood for a civilized debate  ) |
Certainly you didn't offend my patriotism. It can't be offended. Even dirty hippies who have driven to rallies in their parents SUVs and burn flags don't offend my patriotism. They offend me, but my patriotism is really steady about such things.
I don't consider Germany 'just another country.' I don't really consider any country 'just another country.' Every country has a rich history that is unique to itself, and Germany has, to put it mildly, a very unique history, both before and after 1870.
The Truman Administration signed off on the Marshall Plan because it was good for the world to have functioning, liberal, republican governments. That would help create a world in which boys from the United States would not have to get on boats and travel to Europe and sort out European problems. After two generations, policy makers in this country thought that kinda thing was getting a bit old. They decided, in the Truman Administation, that if Europe was made up of rebuilt countries that had functioning republican governments that had strong ties to each other (the ECSC being the child of policy makers such as Acheson and Monnet) and traded with the rest of the world.
Policymakers in the United States believed that if the common European had their own stuff and could vote for their own leaders, and markets were tied together with the creation of an International Monetary Fund to help stabilize currencies and a IBRD to help rebuild infastructure that the old World could be a partner in making this a more sable and freer globe. Now if that is considered 'self-interest' in a pajoritve sense, than there is truly nothing that can be done that isn't 'self-interested.'
Almost, or it should be, needless to say, this is basically the same belief system that guided US policy makers leading up to the Iraqi war. Depose a despot, establish a multi-ethnic constitutional government, and help establish the first republican government in the Islamic world. It worked with much of Europe as well as Japan and South Korea.
The arguments about the war being simply over oil are patently absurd. As if the United States could not have found a modus vivendi with Saddam for cheap oil....for God's sake. I'll quit on that for now, this post is already too long.
There are some relevant articles below....
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_Monnet
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Europea...teel_Community
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monnet_Plan
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acheson